The Hindu : Sport : Vijender, Jitender enter semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006

Sport

Sport

Vijender, Jitender enter semifinals

Samaresh Jung shoots fifth gold

— Photo: AP

IT'S OVER: Boxer Vijender had no problems in beating Scotland's Andrew Kristofer Carslaw in the 69kg category.

Melbourne: Vijender and Jitender Kumar ensured two more boxing medals for India by storming into the semifinals of the 69kg and 51kg events with facile wins in the Commonwealth Games here on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old Vijender hammered Andrew Kristofer Carslaw of Scotland, using his height well and throwing powerful punches. Carslaw, who had poor defence and poorer technique, was thoroughly outclassed by the Indian. The referee stopped the contest with Vijender leading 10-3.

Jitender outpointed Lechedzani Louza of Botswana in an eventful 51kg bout. Jitender prevailed 17-15.

Diwakar out

The other Indian in the fray, Diwakar Prasad, lost his 57kg bout against Stephen Francis Smith of England.

New record

Meanwhile, Samaresh Jung clinched his fifth gold and the Indian shooting juggernaut rolled on. India has won a whopping 20 medals — 12 gold, five silver and three bronze — in the competition so far.

There was no stopping the 36-year-old Samaresh, as he claimed his fifth gold in the 10m air pistol event and also rewrote the Games record. He shot 685.4 to erase Englishman Micheal Gault's eight-year-old record of 679.9.

Vivek Singh once again finished second to Samaresh with an effort of 677.6.

There was some disappointment for the Indians, however, as Manavjit Singh Sandhu could not capitalise on a promising start and ended with the bronze in the trap event. India won another bronze through Sanjeev Rajput in the 50m rifle prone competition.

In the 10m air pistol finals, Samaresh, after two bad rounds, steadied himself to take the gold with 101.4. On the other hand, Vivek was a bit tentative but managed to hold on to a slender lead over Sack to come second. Vivek had 99.6 in the finals compared to Ferdinand's 99.2.

In the women's 50m rifle prone qualification round, India's Lakshmi Priya and Deepali Deshpande were way down the leaderboard at the end of the first round. Lakshmi shot 579 out of 600 and was at the seventh spot, while Deepali's 576 put her in 14th place.

Indian shuttlers progress

In badminton, the Indian players moved into the pre-quarterfinals. There was no stopping Saina Nehwal who beat Sri Lanka's Thillini Jayasinghe 21-7, 21-11 in 17 minutes.

Trupti Murgunde made short work of Fijian Alissa Dean, conceding just 10 points while winning the contest in just 14 minutes. However, Olympian Aparna Popat had to wage a grim battle to go past Malaysia's Julia Wong 21-13, 21-12. Among the men, Chetan Anand crushed Matthew John Wilkinson of Isle of Man 21-7, 21-10 and Anup Sridhar had no difficulty in overcoming Wales' Neil Jonathan Morgan, winning 21-11, 21-2.

However, in mixed doubles, the Indian pair of V. Diju and Jwala Gutta lost to Singapore's Susilo and Jiang 14-21, 18-21.

Easy for Indian paddlers

All the Indian paddlers, except one, registered easy wins on a profitable day for India. Shibaji Datta was the lone loser, going down to Brad Chen of New Zealand 4-1.

Kasturi Chakraborty defeated Canada's Wennin Chiu 4-2 and K. Shamini, who lost her first league match on Tuesday, won her second match beating Trinidad and Tobago's Aleena Edwards 4-1.

Poulomi Ghatak blanked Selima Tetau of Kiribati 4-0, while Mouma Das recorded an identical win against Uganda's Asha Nambozo. The other Indian girl Nandita Saha was also a 4-0 winner, against Priscila Tommy of Vanuatu.

In the men's section, Soumyadeep Roy had a comfortable 4-0 win over William Nyirenda of Malawi and Subhajit Saha thrashed Jamaica's Gavin Hylton by a similar margin. — Agencies

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